Steelhive Faction feedback/balancing

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Zerovirus
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Re: Steelhive Faction feedback/balancing

Post by Zerovirus »

The archers... I'm not sure, but i kinda feel like in almost everything they're just a tiny bit subpar. Attack power, attack accuracy, XP needed, HP... combined it kinda doesn't give the feel of strong combat units.

Swarm+Berserk+Drain? Vampire Tentacle Monsters? I like. Melinath, implement it. I never liked how they could only kill, oh, maybe 2 Lv1 slashers if they got lucky. Putting them up against a Vector is pretty much suicidal... And Vectors are more useful overall. Maybe this will give the Bladewhirlers that edge they need.

I don't think of the low XP as upgrades, I think of them as deployment. They're supposed to be almost useless when you buy them but they become more useful once you upgrade. Besides, most of the ones with low XP have almost no attacks to compensate.
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melinath
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Re: Steelhive Faction feedback/balancing

Post by melinath »

Wesnoth is also not supposed to have robots, but here we are!

Zero: I believe that EST is one hour ahead of Central Time... your post at 6am shows up as 7am for me. 12 works too, though. See you then! Oh, and I'll have a new update by then.

Shawer: Cool, thanks!
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Zerovirus
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Re: Steelhive Faction feedback/balancing

Post by Zerovirus »

melinath wrote: Zero: I believe that EST is one hour ahead of Central Time... your post at 6am shows up as 7am for me. 12 works too, though. See you then! Oh, and I'll have a new update by then.
Erm... 12:00 for me and 1:00 for you I'm assuming then.

Except I still don't know why I can't get on the online server... Should I download 1.7.2?
Last edited by Zerovirus on August 6th, 2009, 2:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Steelhive Faction feedback/balancing

Post by mnewton1 »

When you change your lightshifter to a cybercore it's leadership ability works. This gives a big advantage to whoever is using your race because they can get level 2 leadership for 13 gold
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Zerovirus
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Re: Steelhive Faction feedback/balancing

Post by Zerovirus »

Hmm... That's a problem. Maybe we should restrict the transformational abilities away from cybercone line. I'm considering maybe only the steel slasher and oculus lines.

It's possible this issue might come up with the healer and ninja units once they're implemented too but we'll see.
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melinath
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Re: Steelhive Faction feedback/balancing

Post by melinath »

Zero: I meant 11 your time 12 my time. I should be able to remove the leadership effect.

EDIT:: Zero, if it's all right with you, I'd like to hold off on Bladewhirler drain... it would be way overpowered and doesn't make any sense. I'm thinking of adding pierce attacks to the slasher line (I poke you with my legs!), but I'll wait for your input. Oh, and the bladewhirler attack animation weirdness isn't something I can change, far as I know. It might be an engine bug.

Try updating to 1.7.2; I have it and am able to connect to the server.
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Zerovirus
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Re: Steelhive Faction feedback/balancing

Post by Zerovirus »

Ok. that's in 2 hours then if I'm not mistaken. Hope to not get owned too bad on my first multiplayer game.

No drain for Bladewhirler? It's not that overpowered... He only gets 1 HP back for every hit he lands. Approximately. But we'll keep if out of the uploaded version for now I guess.

And the piercing attacks are okay. You're as much the director of this project as me, yannow.

EDIT: I got 1.7.2 downloaded now and it works. Online is pretty cool even if I didn't actually join any games and only observed.

EDIT: Well, I got owned. Epicly. Both times. First we were playing with both of us as Steelhive. I lost because of an error in which my leader got trapped by a bunch of amniotes while his leader stole my base. (Im in ur base, take off every Steel Slasher, hahaha)

The second time, I played loyalists and he played Steelhive. I suck at multiplayer but even I could exploit the -30% weakness to impact; I got a bunch of heavy infantrymen. Unfortunately they were too slow and he ambushed me before my guys could get back and defend my lieutenant.

Experiment's conclusions:

Amniotes are really annoying. That means they accomplish their task pretty well. You put them on top of a village and it's practically lost forever. Unless you get really lucky or have strong units.

The Oculus is too weak of a ranged unit, so we're upgrading its Jolt attack to 17-1.

I suck at online Wesnoth.

Melinath doesn't talk as much as I do.

We're changing the Village terrain defense back to 60%.

The new oculus melee animation is awesome.

There's more but I forgot and I'll probably remember later. Much much later.
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Re: Steelhive Faction feedback/balancing

Post by wesfreak »

there is a reason people don't see armies of h.i. when playing undead vs. loyalist. try playing as dwarves. those wil give you an edge because beserk attack will clear away amniotes every time.

could you please put the steelhive on version 1.6?

i had a thought: what if it's zerohives ability that makes him lose against the ai? (no offence intended: i also suck. just learn how 2 play a single race well)

maybe others should try.


an exellent test: play dark forecast, once with 2 default races and once with 2 steelhives. this way you will see who lasts longer, and you control both sides that are playing, so human interference doesn't matter. if the steelhive are underpowered, then you should last longer with 2 default races then with them.

edit: here is an idea for some backround: the steelhive were built by the dwarves of old, they revolted and killed most of them and created there own hivequeens so that they no longer needed dwarves to be created.
the dwarves knew the steelhive couldn't be defeated so they trapped them all in a cave using explosives. eventually, the steelhive tunneled out of that cave to terrorise the surface.
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melinath
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Re: Steelhive Faction feedback/balancing

Post by melinath »

wesfreak wrote:could you please put the steelhive on version 1.6?
*sigh* Oh, fine. ;-) It's up on 1.6.

Changes: What Zerovirus mentioned; also, I increased the cost of the oculus to 17, made the lightshifter fly, fixed the leadership bug, and gave the lightshifter the ability to pretend to be a leader.

EDIT:: Keep in mind though: whatever we balance will become meaningless the moment we add a new unit like, say, a healer.
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Re: Steelhive Faction feedback/balancing

Post by Zerovirus »

wesfreak wrote:there is a reason people don't see armies of h.i. when playing undead vs. loyalist. try playing as dwarves. those wil give you an edge because beserk attack will clear away amniotes every time.

could you please put the steelhive on version 1.6?

i had a thought: what if it's zerohives ability that makes him lose against the ai? (no offence intended: i also suck. just learn how 2 play a single race well)
Since when was my name Zerohive? It's Zerovirus. Get it right.

And yes, we said as much in the game. Something along the lines of "the fact that you won using Steelhive means nothing because I'm the worst Wesnoth player ever."

I kinda made Bladewhirler so that the AI has something to handle Amniotes with. We've also been cutting back on Amniote and Choriote HP to make them less overpowered. If that term applies in this situation.
wesfreak wrote: an exellent test: play dark forecast, once with 2 default races and once with 2 steelhives. this way you will see who lasts longer, and you control both sides that are playing, so human interference doesn't matter. if the steelhive are underpowered, then you should last longer with 2 default races then with them.
Hmm... Maybe I'll try this new control experiment. Not today or tomorrow though, I have things planned.
wesfreak wrote: edit: here is an idea for some backround: the steelhive were built by the dwarves of old, they revolted and killed most of them and created there own hivequeens so that they no longer needed dwarves to be created.
the dwarves knew the steelhive couldn't be defeated so they trapped them all in a cave using explosives. eventually, the steelhive tunneled out of that cave to terrorise the surface.
Sorry, I already have a backstory for the Steelhive. Only me and Melinath know it for the moment though.

Melinath: What are you talking about? You haven't told me any backsto- *I elbow him in the stomach* Oh, yeah, that backstory.

XD just kidding, but I do have a backstory. That's going to be in a campaign if any of the people in this project ever feel like listening to me boss around until then.
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Re: Steelhive Faction feedback/balancing

Post by wesfreak »

srry about miss-typing ur name. was one of those you-say-what-you're-thinking-about things.
i might be able to try te test today and give you the results. in the meantime here are some ideas i've had to add damage types and a different type of archer unit (those one shot guys generally don't work that well unless they have magical or something. it would be a good supplement either way.)


to add some more fire damage, y not make an advancement of the slasher ( i think it's called that. cant remember that well)
where it uses so much energy that it overheats, doing fire in melee damage.

another unit possbiblity for cold damage is one that is made out of "cold steel". the steelhive found the steel, thought it was normall steel and made a guy out of it.

last idea: a different kind of robot that is designed to shoot spikes out of its arms (if you don't know what i mean i will be atempting to draw one soon.

edit: i just checked the steelhive faction. the problem is probably a combination of the following : 1. the lvl1 fighter is underpowered in hp, which may cause problems. 2. lack of scouts for now, so you cant grab villages easily yet. 3. the most importatn reason: you need to be a really good strategist to play this game, hiding your leader and using the amniotes properly.
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Re: Steelhive Faction feedback/balancing

Post by melinath »

Not every faction has every damage type and it's good that way.

The slasher already has two upgrade lines; the fire idea could be an upgrade for the bladewhirler, but it really doesn't need one.

If a cold attack is used, there's no reason to invent "cold metal" when refrigeration would do just as well.

Zero: how do you feel about oculus having two, three or four weaker attacks?
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Re: Steelhive Faction feedback/balancing

Post by Zerovirus »

How about we give the Oculus 3 types of attacks: the spin melee, the Jolt (17-1) and Shock (8-2)?

Hmm... Well even if there's no reason for cold metal I actually like the idea. Maybe I'll try making a unit and see how you guys like it.

I was working on the Steel Sparkgazer's melee but got tired and decided to write a Short Story. Maybe I'll finish the Melee next week, because I have stuff to do this weekend.

Yeah, I'm going to make a scout pretty soon. Though all the units have decent movement. At least they don't have only 4 move points like Dwarves do.

And the fighter HP I'll let Melinath handle. If you feel like we need to upgrade its HP, do so. I personally think wesfreak's right but I'll give you the final judgment on this one.

Maybe we should make the amniotes less crucial to gameplay by raising their cost by 2 gold. Then you can't just spam them for invulnerable wall.

I'm considering making the scouts upgrade to units with fire/cold damage. We'd have a coldsteel drone and a... I dunno, blazesteel drone for Lv2? As well as the Steel Scout and Steel Recon.
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Re: Steelhive Faction feedback/balancing

Post by wesfreak »

y not call it a soldier of sulphur, which is a volcanic mineral used in gunpowder and matches. these guys are misscreations: they have a little sulpher in them and can use that to create heat. they still have a regular blade attack and some weak long ranged fire. it could maybe be a lvl 1 line.

how bout calling it a recon drone, then it becomes a steel recon. these guys are supposed to be weak but stealthy, so they could have ambush and nightstalk, a bunch of movement and skirmisher.
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Re: Steelhive Faction feedback/balancing

Post by melinath »

how bout first we get graphics for the scout line and healer line, then look at whether we even want to add more units. That's already a good base for a faction.

The healer, since it uses a welding torch, would already be a good candidate for a fire melee attack.

EDIT:: Since electric and welding attacks would be fire, I've given the steelhive weakness against fire. Since piercing attacks are not very useful against armored robots, I've given them a slight strength in that area. I made some changes to slasher line hitpoints: more for the lvl 1, less for the lvl 3.
Last edited by melinath on August 8th, 2009, 1:43 am, edited 1 time in total.
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